Usher - Coming Home (2LP) - Clear Vinyl

Usher calls his shot with Coming Home, a sleek, grown R&B record that arrived on 9 February 2024, just before he lit up the Super Bowl LVIII halftime show in Las Vegas. It plays like a victory lap and a reset at the same time. After the left turns and long gaps since Hard II Love, this one feels rooted in the things he does best, namely velvet hooks, meticulous harmonies and that easy glide between confession and flex.

The title track with Burna Boy is a neat scene setter. Afro‑fusion colours meet classic Atlanta polish, and Usher sounds unhurried, letting the groove do half the talking. It is the kind of opener that makes sense of the album’s name, a quiet statement about returning to core instincts rather than chasing trends. You can hear that same confidence on Good Good with Summer Walker and 21 Savage, which already had a life of its own before the album dropped. The hook, we ain’t good good, but we still good, lands because it is grown folk talk, no melodrama, just the messy truth wrapped in plush production. Summer slips in like a cool breeze and 21’s verse adds bite without tipping the mood.

Ruin with Pheelz is another smart pivot, a patient, Afrobeats‑inflected rhythm under a lyric about self‑sabotage. Usher stacks the harmonies so the chorus blooms rather than explodes, which is part of this record’s charm. When he wants heat, he goes for sweat and movement, not volume. A‑Town Girl with Latto gives a wry ATL grin to pop‑romance fantasy, and it bangs in the car. Latto’s verse is sharp and playful, a reminder that Usher has always been good at picking collaborators who unlock a track’s personality rather than just chasing names.

Across the set he balances skating‑rink bounce and candlelit slow jams, the lineage that runs from My Way and 8701 through to now. The ballads have that plush, late‑night feel, a little quiet storm, a little grown apologetic flirt. The uptempo cuts carry a light touch, more rhythm than brute force. You can tell the sequencing was sweated over, because the transitions feel natural, and even at a generous runtime the momentum holds. It sounds like an artist curating a mood rather than throwing everything at the wall.

There is also a thread of Atlanta pride that suits where Usher is in his career. The city’s fingerprints show up in drum patterns, ad‑lib attitude and guest choices, but the album never turns into a history lesson. It is more like an artist giving flowers to the place that shaped him while still chasing new textures. That sense of legacy framed the album’s arrival around the Vegas spectacle as well, and a lot of critics read it as a statement piece. Fair enough. The music backs the storyline without leaning on nostalgia.

On wax, these songs breathe. The low end on Ruin spreads out, the stacked vocals in Good Good sit wider, and the title track’s percussion taps have more air. If you have been hunting Usher albums on vinyl, this one rewards a proper turntable sit‑down. Coming Home vinyl will likely be the copy fans pull when they want to show newcomers why the man still matters. In a Melbourne record store the other day, I watched someone drop the needle on side one and the room settled right down, that relaxed head‑nod that says the mix is right. You could buy Usher records online and be happy, sure, but test‑driving in person has its own charm, especially in the small but passionate world of vinyl records Australia.

A lot of long‑running stars make the mistake of sanding off their edges for broad appeal. Usher does the opposite here. He leans into craft. The singing is crisp but lived in, the writing trims the fat, and the production keeps space for little human moments, a breath here, a tossed‑off ad lib there. You get personality. Even when he is skating over glossy chords, there is grit in the pocket that stops the record from floating away.

Coming Home probably will not change minds that are already made up about modern R&B, but for those who have grown up alongside him, it is a sweet spot. It remembers the thrill of a clean falsetto run and a well‑timed key change, but it also knows when to let a groove simmer. File it next to the classics on your shelf of Usher vinyl, and do not be shy about recommending it to the next curious browser who wanders by asking what to start with. If they pick this up and fall for it, tell them to circle back for Confessions later, then keep digging. That is the fun of it, and this album earns its place in that journey.